UAB at Illinois

UAB fired its coaching staff after a defense that bled nearly 38 points a game a season ago, and Alex Mortensen now steps in to try to fix that unit with almost no runway, opening his tenure on the road against a Big Ten opponent. Illinois enters off an 8-4 season under Bret Bielema in which the offense averaged better than 29 points a game, and a group that productive doesn't need much of a plan against a defense this porous, especially one still installing new coaching in Week 1. The overmatched side of these games rarely tightens things up. New coordinators and unfamiliar calls tend to show up as blown assignments and busted coverages before they show up as improvement, and that's the version of UAB's defense Illinois gets to see first. Illinois' own defense was middle of the pack a year ago, giving UAB just enough room to move the ball itself and keep this from turning into a laugher that gets shut down early. Both sides have incentive to play things out rather than sit on a big lead this early in the year, which tends to keep the scoreboard moving even after the outcome is decided. Back the OVER.